CS TA Week 6 - One Week Break (WOW) - To Hackathon or not Hackathon?

So, this last week has probably been the most eventful week I’ve had since starting Lambda, at least in securing a chance of getting a job in the future. There is a ton I have to do this week to maximize my chances of landing a job in the future, but this next month to a month and a half is going to be my make-or-break moment.

I was able to succeed in giving my strongest performance to date in presentations at the Lambda Showcase; it probably could not have gone much better. Very little jitter, perhaps went too fast in some areas, but overall, I surprised myself in how confident I looked. I definitely did not feel excessively confident; more like I went into that state where I just wanted to show my love for my team and that kind of took over and then it was over. So that’s great; it got me warm introductions with 3 companies.

However, the companies that did reach out to me, other than MyCrypto, seem a bit small for comfort. They might not have the funds to be able to keep me on in the off chance they don’t make it. So, I might not consider them as seriously as I would have liked.

I will follow up with Amazon today; I just managed to go through the Whole Foods challenge. I am a little disappointed in myself; I had the last question down for the count (it was a simple Linked List question), but I stumbled because I had no idea how to implement it in the way that they wanted it so that it would pass the tests. That was frustrating, but I am happy that if I saw such a problem in real life, I would be able to take care of it trivially. I will need to do more work to get comfortable with Graphs and Trees, including re-writing some of my previous runs with BSTs and the like, but that’s absolutely fine, considering that I have new understanding of those problems. Going through the coding challenges given to us by Lambda might also be a great use of my time in the future.

The main focus for today, Monday, is to get some career stuff out of the way: there’s an opportunity for a company in San Fran with a subsidiary of AutoDesk, which will require not a whole lot of work on my end, except for an interview in the future! So that’s great. I need to make a Loom video, update my Huntr so that I have a level view of the companies I want to go after, and all that. Finally, I need to make a cover letter, which is the next TODO for today.

The companies I am going for currently:

• Whole Foods (Amazon) - Intro interview done
• Amazon (Data Visualization w/ Python) - Need to follow up with my Showcase video
• Keyo (talk to Jonathan and tell him I’m going to apply)
• MyCrypto (waiting on Jai to tell me what the next step is)
• AutoDesk (Loom + waiting on Ben Crane to tell me next step)
• GitLab (need to apply today and tell Brent Anderson to push it up)
• Facebook (eventually need to pass Instructor’s test and then I can go for this big one)
• Box (need to apply through Breezy)
• Instacart (use Todd’s reference to get into system)

So, for today, here’s the plan:

• 3 PM-4PM - Loom Video, follow up on showcase video for Amazon
• 4-5PM - Workout and take a shower
• 5PM-6PM - Eat food, write cover letter
• 6PM-7PM - apply to Keyo and GitLab and Instacart and perhaps Box
• 7PM -8PM - Check out Breezy for some other stuff, get ready for next day, rest.

Written by Kai Lovingfoss who lives and works in San Francisco building useful things.